Yesterday I received a call from my girlfriend who wasn’t too pleased.She just got last months cellular modem bill which amounted to just under $2000.00.For a $100.00 bill that’s a bit of a stretch and both of us were understandably upset.

I’m frustrated to say that the bill was legit.I had gone over my 250 meg bandwidth limit by around 600 megabytes and at $3.00 per meg, it added up.What was I doing?Pirating movies?Streaming Video?Hosting a Game Server?No.I was checking blogs and chatting over Skype.No podcasts, no youtube, no downloading, no online gaming.I was living the online life of a monk but still I used nearly 800megs over the course of the month which amounts to less than 30 megabytes per day.For those heinous excesses I must pay, and PAY I shall, but I wasn’t prepared to go down without a fight.

This morning I phoned Bell Mobility, the carrier for my air card modem.I was calm and I was polite, the wait was not long and I got on with Paul, Customer Service #6023354, who immediately was sympathetic to my plight.I explained to him that I watched my usage, and that up til now I’d never received a bill such as this, but nonetheless I was not disputing the charges, I was merely asking for a way to trim them down.Paul spoke with his supervisor and managed to help me, and for that I’m eternally grateful.Here’s what we did.

I pay $100.00 per month for my 250 megs of internet.This is no different than my other option for the same service which is Telus Mobility.I know this, because I also pay $100.00 per month to Telus for exactly the same service, same 250 megs, same $3.00/meg over the limit, same service range.What Telus and Bell also offer is a 1000 megabyte package for $350 (Telus) or $375 (Bell).It’s not on the brochures but it exists.I find it insulting personally to pay 4 times the price for exactly 4 times the bandwidth, so I won’t pay it.I’d easily drop the money to have an unlimited use plan, but I won’t pay that sort of obscene fee per month when I still have to watch my usage.But… this $375.00 package would be my savior today because in a gesture of exceptional kindness, Paul and his supervisor put last month’s usage into that package saving me over $1300.00.I was and am extremely grateful.

So grateful in fact, that despite my intentions to drop Bell and switch to Telus for my Cellular modem needs, I will be keeping both active in order to keep my online gluttony from killing me.This will allow me the unprecedented 20 megs per-day of internet pleasure, and keep my hardware options a bit more open as far as signal strength goes as it seems that my Air card picks up a better signal than my PDA and as I anticipate my work circumstances changing and taking me further from civilization I’m thinking a little variety and redundancy to keep connected might be well served.It’s expensive though.

I’m constantly on the lookout for viable alternatives to these cellular modems.And I’m thinking if I learn to set up Satellite internet where I go that could be something.Even if the equipment is a couple thousand dollars, if the service plan is only $25 to $50 per month and there is no bandwidth limit it would pay for it’s self in a year, and the increased value of having more information at my fingertips would be immeasurable.I know there’s not a lot of people in my situation, but if you know people who have solutions to my expensive plight this will work in Canada I’d love to hear them.